


In for a Galleon

by silver_fish



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Fluff, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Humour, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Oblivious!Harry, discussions of voyeurism? i guess? implied voyeurism???, everyone knows they're dating...except for them, this is genuinely romcom trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: It starts out innocently enough. At first, it’s just rumours. A few under-the-table bets.And then someone puts up thelist: Harry Potter’s NextGirlfriendBoyfriend?Partner. And to make matters worse, his best friends are at the top of it. Figures. He really can’t have just onesimpleyear, can he?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Comments: 42
Kudos: 484
Collections: top tier hp fics





	In for a Galleon

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laphicets) / [tumblr](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)
> 
> i have no idea where this came from, but i really wanted to write something not angsty or hurt/comfort so this is what i went for! it's just a fun little thing i wrote in, like, a day. rather than writing my midterm papers. yeah! ~~uni is killing me please send help~~. hope you all enjoy!
> 
> also, for those who don't want to figure it out yourselves or who DO and think i must have been way off the mark: the betting pool winds up being roughly $7000usd (assuming usd is the most standard currency for everyone because americanization and all that, apologies if it's not!). this was on purpose. half the comedic value (to me) was how much money people were spending on this. or you can just think of me as being really bad at math because that's also true!

There are signs. Harry remembers them from his other school years: First, he’ll come near a group of people whispering urgently, who will all fall silent as he approaches. Then, they’ll all stare at him, as if they’re trying to see underneath his skin. Once his back is to them, they’ll burst into furious whispered debate again, occasionally punctuated by giggles.

It wasn’t so bad at first, not really. Even months after, they were still running front-page reports about him in the _Prophet_ , but as September eased into October and he made it abundantly clear that his only intention in returning to Hogwarts was to study and write his N.E.W.T.s, they slowly stopped appearing. Nobody has anything to speculate about him anymore; he’s done his job, and now he thinks he really ought to be allowed to get some rest.

Apparently, the student body of Hogwarts disagrees.

Just as the news articles begin to lessen, the gossiping begins in earnest. Harry _tries_ to figure out what they’re talking about, but his friends all seem as baffled by it as he is. He asked Parvati Patil, just a few days ago, and all she did was laugh.

He tries his best to ignore it and focus on his homework—Hermione’s studious nature has really worn off on him since they returned to school. He’s found that having no Dark Lords out to get you can quite drastically improve one’s motivation for schoolwork—but it seems to be getting worse every day.

“Well,” Hermione said one day, “you’re quite popular with the girls lately, as far as I can tell. I mean, you _are_ a war hero now and all.”

“So am I,” Ron grumbled. “But I don’t see anybody lining up to ask _me_ out.”

Sometimes he thinks she’s right. He’ll catch the occasional snippet of conversations, something like:

“He went out with Ginny Weasley for months, though, remember?”

“But he’s _always_ hanging out with her. Besides, Ginny’s dating Dean Thomas again, didn’t you know?”

“But they’re taking a _break_.”

And then the rest of it is lost in between giggles and _ooh_ s and _aah_ s.

He doesn’t really see what could possibly be so _interesting_ about his romantic life. It’s basically nonexistent, anyway. He and Ginny had called it permanent quits in the summer, after they both agreed he had a lot of things to work out and it wasn’t fair to make her wait for him to do so. It had sucked, sure, but now he knows it was really for the best. He still hasn’t “worked things out,” not the way he meant it then.

So, yes, there are signs. But Harry’s _trying_ to ignore them, he really is.

Today, though, he knows that there is no chance he can continue doing so as soon as he enters the Great Hall for breakfast with Ron. The _entire_ room goes silent, staring at him.

And then, all at once, everyone starts to laugh and whisper and point, all the while casting surreptitious looks his way even once he finds a seat at the Gryffindor table.

“They’ve all gone mental,” Ron notes. “Wonder what it’s all about?”

Harry just shakes his head and reaches for the marmalade. He already knows it’s all about him, whatever it is, and he definitely won’t like it. Determined to postpone the discovery as long as he can, he wolfs down his breakfast and then drags Ron out of the Hall with him to head to Charms, where they meet up with Hermione, who has been at the library all morning.

“Everyone’s staring at you again,” she remarks as they stand outside the classroom, waiting for Flitwick to let them in.

Ron fills her in on their experience at breakfast, and she hums thoughtfully, looking puzzled.

“Maybe someone’s planning something,” she suggests. “Some sort of big surprise?”

“Surprise for _what_?” Harry demands. “It’s November, my birthday was ages ago!”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously. But maybe it’s something else. Surprises are supposed to be surprising, after all.”

He doesn’t get a chance to respond, because at that moment the door is opening and Flitwick is hastily ushering them in, hurrying to the front to start the lecture.

As the day drags on, Harry catches even more people watching him. From first years to seventh years, Ravenclaws and Gryffindors and Slytherins and Hufflepuffs alike. It happens in the corridors, at lunch, in classes. He can’t seem to escape the attention, though not for lack of trying, much to his friends’ amusement.

After dinner, though, he finally finds the answer.

They’re some of the first to Gryffindor Tower this evening, desperate as Harry was to escape. A few lower forms are sitting on the floor by the fire trying to charm someone’s cat purple, but Harry only manages to listen in on their conversation for a moment before Hermione’s voice cuts into it: “Oh my _God_.”

He turns to face her, alarmed. She’s looking at something on the notice board, hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Ron is peering over her shoulder, and then he pulls back and doubles over with laughter.

“What?” he demands, marching towards them. “What’s so funny—?”

He stops as he sees what Hermione is looking at, a deep sense of mortification crawling up inside of him.

It is a simple piece of parchment, inconspicuous but for the large, bold title: HARRY POTTER’S NEXT GIRLFRIEND?

Following that are dozens of names, ranked by some strange number scale. He catches both Ginny’s and Hermione’s names close to the top.

“Eight _galleons_ per bet?” Ron seems to have recovered enough to speak again, popping up in between them to inspect the list more closely. “Hermione, these people are trying to make a fortune off of you!”

Hermione’s cheeks go slightly pink. “Yes, well, it’s just ridiculous, isn’t it?” But as she drops her hands, Harry detects a hint of a smile on her face.

“It’s not funny!” he snaps. “Doesn’t anybody have anything _better_ to do?”

“I was wondering when you’d notice that,” says someone behind them, sounding amused. He turns to see Ginny, brown eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’m doing pretty well, aren’t I? I kept telling them they shouldn’t bet on me, but nobody seems to care what _I_ have to say.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’?” Harry narrows his eyes, suspicious. “Are you in on this?”

She rolls her eyes. “ _Everyone’s_ in on it, Harry. Well, except the three of you. Maybe Neville too, now I think of it. But if you’re asking if the list was my idea, definitely not. I stopped betting when people started going higher than five galleons. They’re all mental, if you ask me. Anyway, Parvati put up the list. There’s one in every common room, I hear. It updates automatically every time someone new puts a bet on someone.”

Harry stares at her.

“It’s harmless, really. See, right now it’s at eight, but it’ll probably go up again. You know, as the stakes get higher. That’s a fixed amount, what everyone has to put in in order for their bet to be counted in the pool. These numbers”—she gestures to her own name, where the number _56_ has been scrawled out, the highest but for Hermione’s staggering _63_ —“that’s how many people have bet on that one. Hermione’s at the top of the list, but if I got another ten votes, my name would move above hers. _Brilliant_ spell-casting, isn’t it? I hear the upper year Ravenclaws really put their heads together on it.”

“That _is_ impressive,” Hermione says, sounding awed. “Can people retract their bets?”

Ginny shakes her head. “They can bet multiple times, though.”

“Brilliant,” says Ron, grinning widely. “Well, Hermione? Aren’t you going to place a bet?”

Harry groans, even as Ginny laughs at him. Sure, _she_ would think it’s funny. They both know that there’s no chance she’ll really be implicated in all of this, no matter how many people place their money on her.

“This is mental,” he mutters.

“It’s not very inclusive, though, is it?” Hermione taps her chin, thoughtful. “I mean, maybe you won’t have another girlfriend at all.”

“ _What_?” Harry looks between her and Ron, who both seem to be considering him _much_ too closely for comfort.

“Well, really, Harry,” Hermione says, leaning a bit closer to him, “if there were ever a time for sexual exploration, it would be now.”

“I’m not gay!”

“I never said you were,” she responds mildly, but she exchanges a look with Ron that tells Harry they both know something he doesn’t. “All I mean is that it would give more variety. For the bets, that is.”

“My money’ll be on you anyway,” Ron informs her. “Then maybe we could rig it up, y’know, make things look a certain way—”

Hermione punches his arm, rolling her eyes. “Harry doesn’t want a fake relationship any more than he wants a real one. Right, Harry?”

Harry scowls at her, which seems to be more than enough of an answer.

“It’s just a joke, Harry,” Ginny says consolingly. “It’ll die down in another few weeks once they realize you’re not interested in anybody, just watch.”

He shakes his head, unable to find anything to say in response to that. As he turns away from the list, though, he sees that the common room has filled up again, with nearly everyone returned from dinner.

“I’m going to bed,” he declares. “Wake me up when the world is sane again.”

Ginny titters sympathetically. “That’ll be quite a while, unfortunately. You might well miss your N.E.W.T.s.”

He shoots her a half-hearted glare, but can’t dispute it. He sets off towards the stairs leading to the boys’ dorms, Ron trailing after him.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Harry points out as he opens the door to the newly-added “eighth year” room.

“You’re not really bothered by it, are you?” Ron asks, seeming to ignore him. “The list, I mean.” As if he could have meant anything _else_.

“Well.” Harry pauses, thinking about it. “It’s a bit embarrassing, I suppose, but at least marginally better than everyone calling me a total nutter.” He grins. “Or an evil git. Or the next new Dark Lord. Or a pathetic, tragic orphan. Or—”

“The Chosen One?” Ron suggests, chuckling.

“That one was all right,” Harry concedes, sitting down on the edge of his bed and working to pull off his shoes. “Better than the _Undesirable_ one.”

Ron snorts. “Well, sure, but if it _does_ bother you, I’m sure we could get rid of it, me and you and Hermione.”

Harry shrugs. “It’ll be annoying, but Ginny’s probably right that it’ll go away soon enough.” He stops, considering everything, and then wonders, “Does it bother _you_? That people are putting so much money on Hermione?”

“We didn’t work out. You know that.” But he’s not meeting Harry’s eyes, and suddenly seems very interested in fishing something out of his trunk.

Harry chews on his bottom lip contemplatively. “I don’t fancy her, though, you know.”

Ron’s shoulders seem to tense briefly, and then relax again. “Yeah,” he says easily, straightening up with a book Harry can’t see the title of in his hand. “I know. Well, Hermione told me she’d help me finish this essay, so I can’t turn in early tonight. G’night, Harry.”

With that, he turns and goes, leaving Harry to stare after him in confusion. Since when did Hermione ever _offer_ to help them write essays?

He shakes his head. He had hoped that whatever strange new fixation had taken over the student body, his best friends would at least remain unaffected.

Clearly, he was wrong. Things just can’t ever go his way, can they?

~

The next few days pass by much the same as the others, but come Friday, there seems to be an uproarious surge in interest towards Harry. He figures it out from a pair of gossiping sixth years in the corridor just before lunch:

The list has been updated, and the names on it have doubled—along with the wager.

With a sense of dread, he drags his friends up to the common room before heading to the Great Hall in order to confirm for himself what he already knows to be true.

And, indeed, the word _girlfriend_ has been neatly scratched out. In the same cursive scrawl, someone has written _Boyfriend?_ in its place, but that, too, has been scratched out in favour of the more gender-neutral term _Partner_.

Two new names are competing with Hermione for first place now: _Ron Weasley_ and _Draco Malfoy_.

“Malfoy!” Harry exclaims, indignant, while Ron roars with laughter and Hermione pats his arm in a poor attempt at comfort.

“Neville’s pretty high too,” Ron remarks between wheezing bouts of laughter. “He’s almost beating Ginny!”

“I hate you,” Harry moans, covering his burning face with both hands. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s all right, Harry,” Hermione soothes. “The novelty of it all will wear off soon and then people will shut up. Though,” she adds, barely concealing a grimace, “I doubt the list will go away until the pool is resolved.”

“Until I start seeing someone, you mean.” Harry sighs.

“Don’t let the list make you make any hasty decisions, though,” she says firmly. “You should be with someone you really like, not necessarily someone the student body wants you to be with. Anyway, let’s just leave it for now. You’re hungry, aren’t you? If we waste any more time up here looking at the list, we’ll miss lunch completely.”

Harry rather thinks she sounds like she’s coaxing a startled animal out of a corner, but he agrees anyway and so it is that they head to the Great Hall to get _something_ to eat before returning to classes. Unfortunately, it does little to take Harry’s mind off the updated list.

It wasn’t so bad, he reasons, when it was just girls. He doesn’t really think Hermione meant anything by the suggestion, either—rather, her mind just works in the most inclusive ways possible. She’s only gotten worse since September, too; SPEW was really just a precursor to all the letters she has been writing and complaints she’s been filing with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She would be the first to say that discrimination of _any_ kind is just—well, awful. And Harry agrees, of course he does, but he’s also never really thought about actually _being_ gay. But, apparently, it is now on the student body’s mind, and there’s probably nothing he can do to change that.

Maybe that’s not really the issue, anyway, he can concede to himself. Rather, he’s disturbed by the names at the top of the list. He oughtn’t be surprised, he knows—he does, after all, spend nearly all his time with them—but he can’t stop thinking about how people must view his relationships with Ron and Hermione to assume… _that_ about them. Sure, he thinks Hermione’s pretty, and he’d be more than happy to never date anyone if it meant he could spend the rest of his life with the two of them, but he sort of just assumed anyone would think that way about their best friends. Besides, they’re even closer than the average set of friends, he rather thinks, courtesy of spending over seven months stuck in a tent together.

During the summer, Ron and Hermione tried to navigate a romantic relationship together before ultimately giving it up as a bad job. When Harry asked Ron about it, he said, “I reckon we just fight too much. We’d need a mediator,” he added, joking. Hermione, for her part, told him, “Something was missing. It didn’t feel right, that’s all. It’s better if we just stay friends.”

Harry’s more than all right with that; admittedly, he had felt a little…well, “left out” isn’t really the term for it, but _something_ , some sort of feeling like—they’re closer to each other, and where does that leave him?

So, he had been grateful when they stopped trying to make it work, though of course he’ll never tell them that. He sort of figures, though, that if he were to date Hermione, Ron would feel the same way—Harry still remembers what the Horcrux used against him all those months ago, after all. He doubts he could ever forget it. And, really, Hermione would probably feel the same way if by some strange circumstance Harry started dating _Ron_. It just wouldn’t work out, and, anyway, he doesn’t _want_ to date either of them.

But people won’t stop _betting_ on it.

It keeps him up on Friday night, the horror of it all, and when he finally does get to sleep, he’s being shaken awake _far_ too early for his liking.

“It’s Saturday,” he complains, trying to pull the covers over his head as Ron’s hands swat his back.

“Yeah, but breakfast will be over if you sleep any later.” Of course breakfast is more important to Ron than Harry’s sleep. _Of course_.

Harry sits up, scowling. “I’m not hungry,” he declares.

Ron rolls his eyes, and in one quick movement he is pulling the covers off of Harry’s bed completely. Dropping them in a messy pile on the floor, he shoots Harry a grin and says, “Sorry, mate, but Hermione’ll blame me if I let you skip meals. You know how she gets.”

Harry _does_ know how she gets. Before their time on the run, Hermione had somewhat disapproved of his eating habits, but she’d never really been too fussed if he skipped a meal here or there. After the fact, however, she seemed a lot more concerned by it. Sometimes she even sounds like Mrs Weasley, telling him he’s _far_ too thin and he really ought to have another helping, even when he’s complaining he doesn’t need it.

There are all sorts of little things like that that have changed in the past year or so. Without the threat of Voldemort being the most pressing issue, they’ve all had to find other things to focus on. He suspects everyone has felt this, though; really, it’s probably what motivated the list to begin with.

He sighs and gets up, giving Ron a playful shove before turning to make his bed up again.

“I’ll meet you downstairs?” Ron asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Harry says distractedly, rooting through his trunk for a clean pair of socks. Sometimes he thinks he really ought to invest in a new wardrobe—half of his clothes are still the baggy hand-me-downs his aunt would give him when she really ought to have just chucked them in the bin, and the other half are school robes, Quidditch robes, dress robes… And all the sweaters Molly Weasley has ever knit for him, of course, though he has far outgrown some of them.

He frowns, wondering about that. He’s never cared too much about his appearance, but perhaps he should. It’s not as if he can’t afford to look stylish or anything. He just can’t be bothered to.

And isn’t _that_ all kinds of ironic. Even though he is scruffy, poorly dressed, can’t even flatten his hair—there are still nearly a thousand galleons in a betting pool about his _romantic_ life.

The thought occupies his as he dresses and wanders downstairs to meet with Ron and Hermione, who are sitting on the loveseat near the fire, talking in low voices. As soon as he approaches, they quiet, looking up at him with rather guilty expressions.

“You’re talking about me,” he accuses them. “When I can’t even defend myself! Some friends _you_ are, waking me up at this ungodly hour just to gossip behind my back.”

“It’s well gone nine o’clock,” Hermione points out as she and Ron stand and head towards the portrait hole with him. “And, anyway, we weren’t _gossiping_. It’s just…”

Ron grimaces. “The list,” he says.

“What about it?”

“Hermione’s not in first place anymore,” Ron says mournfully.

Harry almost trips on his own feet, then straightens up and looks away from them, embarrassed. “Sorry. Er, who is, then? _Please_ don’t say Malfoy.”

“Not Malfoy,” Hermione assures him.

“Ginny?”

“No…”

“It’s me,” Ron finally says, just as they’re entering the Great Hall. “But, erm, Malfoy is in third.”

“Well, that’s not so bad, then.” Harry takes his seat at the Gryffindor table and immediately reaches to start filling his plate, then stops as he realizes Ron and Hermione are still standing behind him. “What?”

They both hesitate for a long moment, and then Ron says, “We thought you’d be, I dunno, weirded out about it.”

Well, in truth, he _is_ , but he’d be considerably more perturbed if Malfoy were at the top, and he tells them as much.

Hermione sits on his right, looking a bit nervous. “It’s not, um…changing anything? How you think about us?”

He looks at her in shock. “Are you kidding me? Why would it change anything?”

For a moment, something almost like disappointment flashes in her eyes, but then she's positively beaming at him and he figures it must have just been a trick of the light. “Well, that’s good. We were just worried you’d feel awkward about it.”

“Do _you_?”

Ron lowers himself down on Harry’s other side. “No,” he says bluntly. “Not at all, mate. We’ve known for years that you’re a bit of a magnet for gossip.”

“Right,” Hermione agrees. “Besides, this is much better than Skeeter’s article, I think.”

“I forgot about that,” Harry admits.

Hermione shudders. “I _wish_ I could.” She’s probably remembering the treatment she had gotten from Mrs Weasley at the time, Harry thinks sympathetically. He hopes that the list doesn’t make anybody treat Hermione badly. Or Ron, for that matter, he supposes.

“Anyway, it’s the second Saturday of November,” Hermione reminds them after a beat of silence. “There was another announcement about it on the board in the common room, Harry, if you want to go.”

He makes a face at her. “Malfoy will be there,” he says sullenly. “He’s going to make fun of me.”

“Well, make fun of him back,” Ron suggests. “He _is_ in third place, after all.”

Harry doesn’t think that makes things any better, to be completely honest.

At the start of the school year, the returning “eighth year” students had consulted with McGonagall in order to come up with a way to foster community between them all. It had, interestingly enough, been Malfoy’s idea. He’s the only Slytherin who came back, though apparently Pansy Parkinson had considered doing the same before ultimately moving to Switzerland. Harry has no idea what’s _in_ Switzerland, but he’s rather glad she’s not at Hogwarts.

Not that Malfoy has been so bad, he thinks. Together, he and McGonagall had consulted the other eighth years, and they had decided that every second Saturday, they could do something enjoyable together, which had turned into a rather strange games club that meets practically all day in an empty classroom on the fourth floor. Of course, it’s not about _games_ —Hermione rarely participates in those, preferring to get a head start on her homework—but about repairing old and forging new bonds. To “put the war behind them.” It hasn’t been so bad. In fact, even Hermione thinks it’s overall been a rather successful experiment. There are some rivalries amongst the younger students, but the older ones, at least, don’t seem too fussed by house boundaries anymore.

“Well, let’s go, then,” he decides. “I’d like to find out who contributed to this whole list business, anyway. Ginny said it was Ravenclaws.”

“And Parvati,” Hermione adds.

“Right. So, Padma was probably pretty involved.”

“What are you gonna do to them?” Ron asks incredulously.

“Dunno.” Harry takes a sip of tea, pondering it. “I’ll just remember, I suppose. Then I’ll know who owes me a favour next time I need one. I mean, you’re great, Hermione, but the Ravenclaws write fairly decent essays themselves.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you can think of a better way to spend favours than cheating on homework you’d do fine on on your own.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “I’ll think about it, I guess.”

They both seem agreeable to that, and so they finish their breakfast and then make their way to the room on the fourth floor where most of their classmates have already congregated. As they enter, everyone looks up, and then they’re all laughing with each other, as if Harry’s mere presence is painstakingly hilarious.

Harry ignores them, electing to drop his bag near the door and then join the misshapen circle they have made on the floor, Ron and Hermione on either side of him. Harry notes that Malfoy, who is sitting almost directly across from him, doesn’t seem to find anything very funny, either.

“Thought you might be too busy assembling your harem to come, Harry,” says Terry Boot lightly.

“Half of them are already here,” Hannah Abbott points out.

Everyone begins to roar with laughter again, while Harry scowls.

“We’re just joking,” Terry says easily. “Some of us aren’t completely blind, anyway. We already know who you’ll end up with in the end.”

Harry blinks dumbly.

“That’s true,” agrees Susan Bones. “I imagine most of the pool has been from younger years who don’t know you very well.”

“What makes you think you know?” Harry asks indignantly. “I don’t even fancy anybody! You’re all just—you’re mad, that’s what.”

But most of the gathered students are shaking their heads empathetically.

“You just don’t realize it,” offers Padma. “We’ve known for ages, though. We’re all just waiting for it to happen.”

“Who are you talking about, then?”

She laughs. “Well, really, we can’t _tell_ you, can we? You’d just get angry with us, anyway.”

Harry eyes the others in the circle suspiciously, but nobody else speaks, all in apparent agreement with Padma. Except for Malfoy, who just looks exceptionally bored.

Finally, he says, “I don’t really think my love life is _that_ interesting.”

Parvati’s eyes light up, and she leans forward to look at Harry over her sister. “Oh, but it _is_ , Harry! You should hear some of the things people are saying about it.”

“Some sixth year asked me if it was true you had had a threesome with me and Ginny,” Dean recalls. “Strange, that one.”

Harry blanches, and laughter fills the circle once more.

“Well, that’s nothing,” Malfoy finally speaks up, sounding as bored as he looks. “Apparently, we’ve been having an illicit affair since fourth year.”

Everyone laughs at that too, and this time Malfoy’s lips twitch up, just a bit. Harry can only shake his head at him, caught somewhere between mortified and amused.

“And you’re encouraging that, are you?”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “As if, Potter. I hardly find your romantic endeavours worth my time. Worth my money, maybe,” he adds thoughtfully. “I don’t think there’s a single person in this room who _doesn’t_ know who you’ll wind up with.”

“None of us knew you were into blokes, though,” says Terry. “That kinda changed our thoughts, a bit.”

“Speak for yourself, Boot,” Malfoy says pompously. “Anybody who’s paid even a morsel of attention to Potter over the past four years would already know he fancies both.”

“I do not!” Harry says hotly, though he really doesn’t know himself anymore, if he’s being perfectly honest. “How would you even know if I did?”

“Oliver Wood,” someone suggests, and then, another, “Cedric Diggory?”

Harry flushes at the implications. “I—I didn’t— What are you _on_ about?”

Half his classmates look downright sympathetic. The others are all laughing at his expense, still.

“See?” Parvati says, giggling. “This is why it’s so interesting!”

Harry turns to Ron, desperate. “Do you know who they’re talking about?”

He shakes his head. “No idea, mate.”

“Hermione?”

But she just shakes her head too.

For some reason, everyone else seems to find this hilarious as well.

Just as the laughter is beginning to die down, a voice at the door says, “Hey guys. What’s going on?”

And as Neville sits down on the other side of Hermione, the others begin to explain, right from the very beginning again, what’s been “going on.” Harry’s face sears, and Hermione pats his thigh in consolation. Ron scoots a little closer to him, so their legs are touching, and mutters, “Mental, the lot of them.”

Harry looks up at him and tries not to grin. “You’d know,” he shoots back, with no venom. “You think it’s hilarious too.”

“I imagine they just like to fluster you,” Hermione puts in, leaning closer to hear them. “Because you’re so easily embarrassed.”

“Thanks, Hermione.”

“Well, it’s true.”

He realizes, suddenly, that while they have put their heads together to whisper, the rest of the group has finally left the topic behind, talking, now, about their homework assignments for this week. But even once they pull apart and join in the conversation again, many of their classmates continue to shoot Harry the occasional thoughtful look, as if they know something he doesn’t.

~

Much as Ginny said it would, the whispering begins to die down as the days go on. The list never does go away, however, and the pool seems to grow more with each passing day even as the wildest rumours die down. To Harry’s increasing disbelief, Ron and Hermione now have over twice as many bets on them as Malfoy, who has stubbornly remained the third highest on the list. Though he assured them before that he didn’t feel weird about it, he’s starting to feel a little…well, weird about it.

He notices, more than ever before, how much they touch each other. This is normal, he tries to reason, but he doesn’t think even Dean and Seamus are as tactile as he and Ron are. But, then, they’ve been through a lot together. Harry relishes in the touch, the constant reminder that all three of them are alive and together and there is nothing left that could possibly pull them apart.

They’re all at complete ease with each other, of course, in a way Harry doesn’t think anybody else ever could be with him or he could be with anyone else. Sometimes Ron will wake up in the middle of the night without Harry even saying a word and slip into Harry’s bed with him, falling asleep again right away, knowing that just his presence will keep Harry from returning to whatever nightmare has woken him that night. And Hermione, of course, is always reminding him to eat, drink enough fluids, get enough sleep. She never seems to look down on him for forgetting to take care of himself, just gently reminds him when he hasn’t been doing such a good job of it on his own. And it’s not like it’s not mutual—he and Ron often pry books away from Hermione and send her off to bed, and Harry is always aware of when Ron could use a game of Wizards’ Chess to take his mind off of whatever unfortunate memory it has gotten stuck on.

But they just know each other very well, he knows. It doesn’t mean anything, except that they’ve been friends for a long time, and that they understand each other completely because of it.

Still, he finds his mind caught on it again and again, and sometimes while Ron and Hermione aren’t paying attention, he’ll just _look_ at them. He’s been aware for years that they’re both rather attractive, though he knows that they don’t always think the same of themselves. He’s wondered, sometimes, about how physical they had gotten with each other before they decided to go back to being friends, but that would be normal of anyone in his position, wouldn’t it be? He saw them kiss for the first time, after all, and then a few more times after that, and it’s not like it made him _feel_ anything. A little jealous, maybe, but not in the sense that he wanted either one of them to be kissing him instead. He’s always thought that they would end up together eventually, anyway, and he thinks they both sort of did too.

But they didn’t.

And to be completely honest, Harry still isn’t sure _why_.

Eventually, he decides that the best he can do is just ask someone. He finds his opportunity during a Saturday game-slash-study-slash-make-fun-of-Harry session, the second one since the list went up. While Hermione is engaged with a group of advanced Arithmancy students and Ron is playing chess with Malfoy (who has turned out to be the only person worth challenging, though Ron insists he doesn’t _mind_ playing with people who aren’t as good as he is), Harry finds himself by Neville and Parvati.

He says, “Will you just tell me about the list?”

Both of them look up at him, Parvati in amusement and Neville in sympathy.

“Well, that depends,” Parvati says with mock seriousness. “What do you want to know?”

Harry glances over at Hermione, and then at Ron, before he turns back to her, frowning. “I want to know why Ron and Hermione are at the top of it.”

Whatever she was expecting from him, it clearly wasn’t that. Her smile falls away, and she chews almost nervously at her bottom lip.

“I reckon it’s just because of how much time you spend together, Harry,” Neville reassures him. “It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t know, Neville…” Parvati plays with the hem of her sleeve, appearing suddenly quite uncomfortable. “Harry, do you remember—you remember how we went to the Yule Ball together, don’t you?”

He winces. “Yeah, I do. I’m sorry, Parvati—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says quickly. “We were, like, fourteen. But, um…well, I was rather annoyed with you at the time, but maybe you should think about who you _did_ wind up spending your time with there, Harry. I know you, erm, had a thing for Cho Chang, or whatever, but at least _I_ never really saw you paying much attention to her. You were, um…”

“What, looking at Cedric?” He rolls his eyes. “You guys _really_ think I had a—a _thing_ for him?”

Neville and Parvati exchange a short look, and then they both nod.

“Just a bit of one,” Parvati hastily informs him. “Not, like—not like you would’ve wanted him romantically, exactly, maybe. I don’t know, Harry, but they do have a point. At some point we all tried to make ourselves look, er, better, for certain upperclassmen. I guess with Wood, you might’ve just been a show-off because he was Quidditch captain, but…” She stops, shaking her head. “That’s not the point. What I mean is, you were with Ron. The whole time.”

“We’re best friends,” Harry protests.

“Well, yes, I know that, but…don’t you ever, um…don’t you ever think about…?”

“Think about _what_?” he demands. “I _have_ been thinking about it, lately, if that’s what you’re trying to say, because you made that stupid list and I can’t stop thinking about it!”

“I didn’t think it would wind up like this,” Parvati says. “ _Honest_. Actually, everyone going on about how we all knew...well, they’re exaggerating. Only some people did, and then it sort of, um, spread around and the rest of us started to agree.”

“So, who told you, then?”

“Ginny.” She doesn’t meet his eyes. “I was betting on her at first. You guys seemed like such a good couple! But she told me why you’d ended it.”

Suddenly feeling rather betrayed, Harry tenses. “Did she,” he says.

“Yeah. Because she knew your heart was somewhere else.” Parvati glances sideways at Neville, then fixes her gaze on Harry again. “She wasn’t the only one who thought that, apparently.”

Harry furrows his eyebrows at her, not understanding. “But we didn’t… What?”

“That’s just what she told me,” Parvati says, sounding a bit defensive. “Neville here thought so too, for your information!”

Neville smiles sheepishly. “Well, I never bet on it, though. And nobody asked me ‘til the list had already been up for a while, anyway, just before they added boys to it.”

“But you…?”

“I just told Parvati what I thought.” He shrugs. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, Harry. You guys are just really close. It only seemed right, I s’pose.”

Harry stares at him, trying and failing to understand what in the world he’s saying.

“That’s why they’re at the top of the list,” Parvati says quietly. “Because everyone thinks you’ll wind up with them anyway.”

“Ron and Hermione,” Harry says, his voice sounding rather distant even to his own ears.

She nods.

“But—what, both of them?”

“I think you can love more than one person, Harry,” she says seriously. “But you shouldn’t let other people decide how you feel, anyway.”

“Never mind what I feel, they _definitely_ don’t feel that way about me,” Harry points out.

“I don’t know…” She frowns, uncertain. “Maybe—maybe you just shouldn’t worry about it so much. It’s obviously causing you a lot of stress.”

Neville nods in agreement. “I mean, people say they know, but they’re all just guessing as much as anybody else. The only person who really knows how you feel is you, I reckon.”

“I’m not even sure if I do,” Harry mutters. His stomach is in knots, his mind positively racing. “Well, thanks for telling me, at least.”

“We put a new rule up,” Parvati tells him suddenly. “If by the time Christmas is over, you’re not with anybody, we’ll give everyone their money back.” She shrugs. “It wasn’t _really_ about that anyway. Just a bit of fun to keep everyone...well, you know.”

Harry does know, and it is only because of that that he’s able to smile at her and say, “Well, looks like it worked. Thanks, though. For taking it down.”

“There’s still another month until it’s gone,” she reminds him teasingly, suddenly back to her regular self.

He shudders. They both laugh at him.

“It’ll be all right,” Neville tells him, earnest as ever. “A year from now, nobody’ll even remember this.”

“I don’t know about _that_ ,” Parvati says, but she’s smiling. “Really, Harry, don’t worry about it so much. Just promise us you won’t shack up with Malfoy, all right?”

“Ugh.” Harry makes a face at her. “Definitely not.”

They’re all laughing about that when Ron approaches them, sitting down heavily next to Harry. “Hey, Harry. What are you guys talking about?” he asks.

Harry feels his cheeks warm. “Erm, we just…”

“Transfiguration essay,” Parvati puts in. “You’ll never _believe_ what Neville wrote about…”

Together, Parvati and Neville spin together a rather convincing story, pulling Ron in completely. If he thought at first that there was something Harry wasn’t saying, by the time they’re heading back to Gryffindor Tower, he has forgotten it. Harry supposes this means he’s gotten his favour in from Parvati for this whole mess, at least, but there’s still one more person who owes him one _hell_ of an explanation.

~

He finds Ginny the very next day, stretched out on the settee in the common room looking for all the world as if she hasn’t a single care.

He stops and looks back at Ron and Hermione. “Go on without me,” he tells them. “I wanted to talk to Ginny about something.”

“What?” Ron asks curiously.

“Erm…your birthday present,” Harry invents. “So you can’t listen, it’ll spoil it.”

He looks aghast. “My birthday’s ages away, mate.”

“Never too early,” Ginny suddenly speaks up, having sat up straight in order to watch them. “It’s a good one, Ron, you’ll really like it. Harry’s been really thoughtful about it.”

Hermione tilts her head, thoughtful. For a moment, Harry braces himself for her to call him out on the lie, but she just reaches for Ron’s wrist and pulls him along.

“We’ll be in the library,” she calls to Harry over her shoulder. “Try not to be too long, all right?”

“I’ll be quick,” he promises, and then she is gone.

As the portrait swings closed behind them, Ginny snorts. “That was the _lamest_ excuse ever. I hope you’re really planning to get him something good when his birthday _does_ come around.”

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Harry admits. “I just needed them to go away. You’re not busy, are you?”

“Nope.” She gestures to the open space beside her, urging him to sit. When he does, she peers over at him and asks, “So, what’s on your mind all of the sudden?”

“As if you should even need to ask,” he grumbles, leaning back and glaring at the ceiling. “I had a rather interesting conversation with Parvati yesterday, you know.”

“Oh? You know, I never knew her, really, before this year, but she’s a lot better than I always thought. She _is_ pretty smart—I mean, her twin’s a Ravenclaw, so I suppose it makes sense—”

“We talked about you,” Harry cuts in, looking down at her. “And the list.”

“Ah.” She purses her lips. “The _list_. I told you, Harry, I haven’t contributed any money, not since the very beginning, before it was all formalized and stuff. And I won’t fake date you either, if that’s what you’re thinking. Dean and I are finally just figuring things out again.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He sighs, frustrated. “I thought we agreed when we broke up. You know, why we were doing it? It all made sense to me. But—what did you tell Parvati? I mean—well, thanks for not mentioning my, erm, issues, but—?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Ginny says quietly, all humour lost from her tone. “It wasn’t all you, either. I told Parvati part of the truth, though, yeah. I think…maybe when we were together before, it wasn’t true. But after the battle, at least…” She shakes her head. “You guys are inseparable. I know you don’t even notice, but the rest of us…well, we do. And it wasn’t easy, Harry. To be your distraction from them. With everything else on top of that…it just wasn’t worth it. We’re better as friends, anyway.”

Harry frowns, thinking about this. It’s true, he didn’t spend a lot of time alone with Ginny in those months following the battle, but he had never considered her as a _distraction_. What was there that he needed to distract himself from, aside from all the horrors of the war? And he _was_ facing those, still is, with Ron and Hermione.

His frown deepens. _Ron and Hermione_.

“Okay,” he says after a moment, careful, unsure. “So…so why did you think…?”

She twirls a strand of hair around one of her fingers, biting her cheek. “Listen, Harry, if I had thought you knew, I would have told you outright. But I thought you probably just needed time to figure it all out. I actually thought maybe the list would help you, but I see now it’s just made it worse, so… Think about this, okay? When you think of what’ll happen once we’re all graduated from here, who do you see yourself with?”

“Ron and Hermione, of course.” He furrows his eyebrows. “Well, they’ll both be busy. Hermione’s going to apply to the Department of Magical Creatures, we’re just waiting ‘til she realizes she really wants to, and Ron wants to take the Auror training, he just didn’t want us to come back to Hogwarts alone. I dunno what I’ll do, but I guess I’d just follow them. I mean, they followed me lots of places. It only makes sense.”

“A few years down the road?” Ginny presses. “Where will you live? Who will you live _with_? Because I know you can’t be alone,” she adds, looking apologetic for even bringing it up. “You need someone. Who will it be?”

“Well.” He chews on his lower lip. “Well, Ron and Hermione, probably. I thought they’d stay together, though, before. I dunno if they’ll want to live together if they’re not.”

“But you always assumed you’d live with them anyway?”

“Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

Ginny’s lips twitch up a bit. “You might want to think about that a bit, then. You’re not sure if they’ll want to live together now that they’re broken up, but you _knew_ that they’d want you to live with them—and you would want it too—even though you’re not involved with either of them?”

“Well, loads of people live with their friends,” Harry points out. “I don’t think that’s _weird_ , Ginny. It just—I dunno, it makes sense to me. They make me feel better. They know what I need. It makes sense. Even if me and you had stayed together…”

“That’s the _problem_ , Harry.” She leans a bit closer and grabs his hand, drawing his attention back to her completely. “I knew that. That even if we were together, you would rather stay with them. Don’t you see the problem with all of that?”

And he does, he thinks, his stomach twisting uncomfortably.

“But that just means we’re closer than you and I are,” he says weakly. “It’s just…”

“You’re being an idiot,” she informs him, but she’s smiling. “Don’t say anything to them right away. Just think about it, all right? I see the way you look at them. I think the only people who don’t are Ron and Hermione.”

Harry pulls his hand back, face burning. “The way I _look_ —?”

“They do it to you too,” she interrupts. “Like, I dunno… When I was small, Mum used to tell us these stories about—y’know, _happily ever after_ s and _true love_ , all that rot. I mean, it’s probably all rubbish, but if it’s not, then…I think that’s what you three have. True love. You just don’t see it yourself.”

“But it’s not like I have, erm…” He coughs, glancing away from her.

She laughs. “You might, though, and just not realize it. I mean, _honestly_ , you must think they’re both good-looking, right?”

“I guess,” he murmurs. “Hermione’s always been beautiful, though.”

“And Ron?”

Harry feels his flush deepen. “Well, sure, he’s fit, but it’s not like I’m fantasizing about him fucking me!” He shuts his mouth again, horrified at the volume of his voice, and then buries his face in his hands, barely holding in a groan.

“Gross,” Ginny remarks. “I never want to hear ‘Ron’ and ‘fucking’ in the same sentence again.” She stops, coughs. “But, um, no offence or anything, Harry, but I know you’re trying not to seem gay, but you’re not making a very good case for yourself when you say things like that. It doesn’t matter, though,” she adds. “Just—er, most securely heterosexual men would probably rather do the fucking. No judgement, though, really. Your sex life isn’t my business anymore, and, anyway, I know some women prefer to be on top and all, so—”

“Shut up,” Harry tells her miserably, glancing at her between his fingers. “You’re not helping.”

At least she has the decency to look embarrassed, he thinks.

“Right,” she says. “But, um— _have_ you fantasized about it?”

He thinks about it. “Maybe, a couple times, I dunno. I thought it was normal, especially in dreams and stuff. And, well, we were the only people around each other for a pretty long time, so I guess—it just made sense, to think about it. It’s not like we did anything,” he says hastily. “I just figured they probably thought the same things. But, er, about each other, not me. I thought about that more than me and—” He stops, horrified at the sudden turn of this confession, but Ginny is laughing at him.

“What, you thought about them together?” she teases. “Hoped they’d get a little active while you were there to witness it?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it, too flustered to come up with something to say in response. He’s not really sure he would be able to deny it even if he _could_.

She sobers again quickly, though. “Honestly, Harry, I don’t think that’s as normal as you’re trying to make it seem. Maybe sometimes, yeah, but continuous…erm, thoughts. I mean, if you have such a vivid imagination, you probably could have pictured anybody else, even if they _were_ the only people around.”

“But I don’t want to have sex with them,” he says desperately. “I’ve thought about it, whatever, but right now I’m thinking about it and I don’t _want_ that, and it’s not like I’ve ever thought about—er, kissing, or anything like that. And I don’t think it’s about them, I just—my imagination _isn’t_ vivid, that’s the point. I know their bodies best, so it—it made sense.” He swallows, throat thick with an emotion he can’t identify. “It’s not like I’m even very experienced, Ginny. I’ve only dated you and Cho.”

“Cho barely counts,” she dismisses. “You made her cry more than you ever snogged her, way I hear it.”

“Well, there, then! I’m obviously not cut out for this sort of thing, so—”

“You’re a fine kisser, Harry, don’t worry about it.” She gives him a playful shove. “It’s not about experience, anyway. It’s about how you feel. So maybe just…think about it a bit. Next time you, er, need something to fantasize about, just…think about them. You wouldn’t be able to get off to people you aren’t sexually attracted to, I mean. But it’s not all about the sex, anyway, though I’m sure that would be great— You know, this is really funny, there was this rumour going around about you and me in a threesome with Dean for a while there. Not really my thing, but clearly _someone_ thinks it could be yours.” She laughs, then, at the look on his face. “Anyway, just think about it, that’s all. Not for anybody else, or for some stupid list, but…for you. You haven’t had a lot of chances to ask for the things you want, but if you want this…then you should ask for it.”

He sighs unhappily, but then musters up a small smile for her. “That’s true. I guess the list has gotten to my head a bit.”

“But you’re not thinking about Malfoy, right?” she asks suspiciously.

He laughs. “No, definitely not. I’ve never secretly fantasized about him before, either, if that’s your next question.”

“He _is_ attractive, though,” she muses. “And quite gay, as the rumours go.”

Harry scrunches his nose up at her. “I don’t think I want to know what goes on in Malfoy’s bed, thanks.”

“Only Ron’s and Hermione’s, right.” She grins. “Well, go on, then. They’re waiting for you! See how long you can sit with them before you think about how they would have sex together—”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” He stands up, uncomfortable, very aware that meeting Ron and Hermione right now will be insanely awkward. The last thing he needs is Ginny planting images in his head that he now knows probably shouldn’t have even been there in the first place.

She stands up with him and reaches forward to give his hand a gentle squeeze.

“It’ll be all right,” she says, an absolute echo of Neville from the day before. “And, you know—I know it’s a little weird, but you _can_ talk to me. Whenever you want. We’re friends before we’re exes. All right?”

“All right,” he concedes, and she drops his hand to let him leave. When he’s just about to the portrait hole, though, Ginny’s voice calls out to him again: “Erm, Harry?”

He stops, turning. “What?”

“You forgot your bag.” She holds it up, looking faintly amused.

He walks back, cheeks stinging, and takes it from her. “Thanks,” he mutters, and, this time, she really does let him go. He can only hope that means he hasn’t left anything _else_ behind.

~

Predictably, things get really weird really fast.

That day in the library, they seemed concerned for him, saying that he looked like he might be getting sick.

“It is a bad time of year for the flu,” Hermione remarked. “Maybe you should get a Pepperup from Madam Pomfrey.”

It was a good excuse, at least, to leave them earlier than he would have otherwise.

The awkwardness persists, however. He finds himself looking at them even more than he was before (which, he’s realizing, was _a lot_ ). He doesn’t really find anything new about them, but he thinks a lot more about certain parts of their bodies, unable to deny that Ginny might have had a point, at least around the sexual attraction part.

But he’s not sure where the line should be drawn, exactly. They touch a lot, he’s realizing more and more. Casual touches—wrists, hands, thighs—and more prolonged ones, an arm around his shoulders or his face in Hermione’s bushy hair as he dozes off, calmed by the sound of her quill furiously scraping against parchment.

At first, when he starts to notice these things, they notice his noticing. Ron throwing a casual arm over his shoulder, and him stiffening at the sudden contact.

“All right, mate?” Ron asked, frowning down at him. He didn’t pull away from him completely, but he took the pressure of his arm away.

This is something they’ve done many times before, Harry can recall now. Whether a product of a loveless childhood or a brutal war or some strange mixture of both, Harry has become a lot more sensitive, now, as an adult, than he ever was as a teen. Ron and Hermione are very aware of it, though—they noticed it even before he did, in fact.

“I’m all right,” he reassured Ron. “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. You can leave it.”

And so he did, but not without sharing a worried look with Hermione. That night, Ron was in Harry’s bed, and though Harry certainly didn’t want to kick him out, never before had Ron’s presence right beside him felt so hot and stifling. He had had to slip out of Ron’s grip long before Ron woke up, frustrated in every way he possibly could have been.

Hermione, for her part, seems to think he’s heading toward some sort of nervous breakdown. She’s constantly bringing him snacks and water, using her soft, soothing voice that she generally only reserves for when he really _is_ having some kind of episode. A bit ashamed of himself, Harry finds that he enjoys the treatment and wonders, not for the first time, what living in the same home as her will be like, once they’re out of Hogwarts for good.

By the time Christmas holidays come, Harry has a feeling that he knows the answer to it all, but it’s far from reassuring. Rather, he wonders what he is supposed to do now, whether he could ever choose between them, whether he would _have_ to. He thinks again and again about their failed relationship with each other, and, with an ever-sinking heart, doubts that he could make it successful. Ginny tells him he’s being stupid, that they don’t need to date each other to both be with Harry, but Harry shakes his head, tells her that feels _wrong_ , and he just can’t explain it but it _does_. She doesn’t press him after that, but she does reassure him that the best he can do is ask.

Unfortunately, this is one area in which he is sorely lacking in Gryffindor bravery.

The three of them all decide they’re going to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas this year, given that they’ll never experience a Hogwarts Christmas again (and, Hermione reminds them, they _should_ already be revising for their N.E.W.T.s). Harry’s not sure if this makes things better or worse for him, as the common room begins to empty out and they find themselves completely alone there for the first time in quite a while.

Hermione is reading a book, sitting cross-legged on the floor right in front of the fire with Crookshanks curled up contentedly beside her, while Ron effortlessly destroys Harry at Wizard’s Chess. _Again_.

As Ron sets the board up for another round, Harry finds himself saying, “I’ve been wondering something.”

Ron pauses, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. Hermione hums in acknowledgement, but when Harry stays quiet she dog ears the corner of her book and twists around to face him.

“I think you’re supposed to follow that up with a question?” she teases.

He reddens, casting his gaze away from her. “Well, um, you don’t need to tell me, but I just, er, that is, I was wondering—not in a _weird_ way, just—I just _wondered_ , that’s all, and you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to, really—”

“Why don’t you just ask your question?” Ron suggests, lips twitching.

“Did you guys ever have sex?” he blurts, and then looks down at his knees in a massive effort to avoid seeing their reaction.

“Once,” Hermione says quietly.

Harry chances a look up at her, only to find that she looks far from offended. In fact, she’s smiling a bit, looking almost sad. When he glances at Ron, he sees that he’s wearing a rather similar expression.

“Oh.” Harry lets out a long breath, trying to figure out how he feels about that. He’s almost tempted to ask how it was, or _how_ , exactly, did they do it, rather, but he manages to keep those questions down. Instead, all he can do is stare ahead, floundering for something to say.

Hermione rescues him by asking, “Is this about the list, Harry?”

He swallows, looking down at his shoes. “Kind of,” he says. “I guess it’s just, er, weird. That you guys have but I…”

“We’re basically virgins too,” Ron tells him, laughing. “Honestly? It sucked. We had no idea what we were doing. Hermione was bossy—”

“—Ron was himself—”

“It just didn’t work well. I mean, it felt good, but emotionally we just weren’t…”

“Oh,” Harry says again, smaller this time.

“We’re still young,” Hermione reminds him. “Anyway, you should stop thinking about the list, Harry. Nobody’s so much as glanced at it in ages, and it’ll be gone in a couple weeks anyway.”

But Harry hasn’t been thinking about the list. He hasn’t thought about the list in weeks.

“If you want to sleep with somebody, though,” Ron says thoughtfully, “you could probably have anyone you wanted.”

Harry frowns, looking up towards the fire. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?” Ron sounds almost _offended_ by this, as if it’s not half his fault in the first place. “Seriously, you’re good-looking, it wouldn’t just be about your name, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Harry tries not to focus on the fact that Ron just said he was good-looking. He fails.

“You think so?” he asks, looking over at his friend.

“Definitely,” Ron says.

“So…” He chews at his lip, contemplating. Hermione leans forward and taps a finger against his cheek and, embarrassed, he releases his lip from between his teeth. “Er, so how did you know, then? That you didn’t work together?”

Hermione and Ron exchange a long, complicated look. Harry gets the feeling that this is something they’ve discussed at length, maybe even recently.

“There was something missing,” Hermione finally says, voice slow, quiet.

“It just felt wrong,” Ron agrees. “Hermione’s brilliant. I don’t know if I’ll ever want any other girl”—Hermione flushes at that, looking pleased—“but it wasn’t right.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Harry complains. “You’re obviously still into each other. I don’t see what could have gone so badly you decided to swear it off. And, anyway, did you _really_? I mean, aside from the snogging and the sex, you two are as good as girlfriend and boyfriend, aren’t you? You’re always together, you—”

“Harry, wait.” Hermione reaches forward and wraps one of his hands between both of hers. “You’re not understanding. Something was _missing_ , but we couldn’t get that thing. We’ll never work if we don’t have it. And the way things are, it’s something we can only get as friends. If that means we don’t get to have sex—because otherwise we wouldn’t be having very _good_ sex—then that’s all right. We’re happy like this, I promise.”

“Agreed,” says Ron. “You shouldn’t worry about it, mate. You’ll just drive yourself mad thinking about it, like with the list.”

“But—”

“Really, Harry, it’s all right.” Hermione squeezes his hand tight. “I don’t think you can give us what we were missing, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

“You’re not saying what it is, though,” he points out, frustrated. “You guys don’t get it, do you? Now this is just going to make things _worse_ , knowing this! You obviously love each other, so _why_ —”

“No,” Ron says firmly. “You don’t understand, mate. And we already decided months ago we wouldn’t tell you what we figured out. It’s not fair to you, all right? We’re happy with this.”

“You _can_ tell me, though!” Harry tugs his hand away from Hermione, getting to his feet and pacing agitatedly in front of her. “If you think I’ll be angry or disgusted or—whatever, I won’t be!” He stops, whirling around to face them. “It’s all I can bloody think about! Wondering whether you fucked or not, and now I don’t even know whether I’m pleased to hear you did or not because it’s all so bloody _confusing_. So just fucking tell me already!”

They’re both staring at him, open-mouthed.

Ron recovers first, sounding rather dazed as he asks, “You thought about us fucking?”

Belatedly, Harry realizes he _has_ , in fact, said that. Flushing with embarrassment, he nods, unable to meet Ron’s eyes. “All the time,” he mutters. “I didn’t even think about it, I just thought maybe—er, maybe…”

“Maybe what, Harry?” Hermione is using that gentle voice again, that one that makes him want to tell her everything going on in his head, that makes him feel _wanted_ and _loved_.

“Maybe I’d like to see it,” he whispers, feeling his anger drain out of him completely. He sits heavily on the nearest chair and looks miserably up to the ceiling. “I know, it’s awful, I’m _sorry_. Just forget it, all right?”

When neither of them says a word, he looks down, heart constricting, but pauses as he takes in the looks on their faces.

This time, it is Hermione who reacts first. In no time at all, she is standing over him, her eyes dark with something Harry has never seen in them before. Fiercely, she pins his wrists down to the arms of the chair and just _stares_ at him.

He swallows hard, slightly terrified but considerably more turned on. “Hermione?”

“Say that again,” she breathes. “Say it again, Harry, what you want.”

Heart racing, he says, “I want to—to see you and Ron—I want to see you together, I want to—”

But he can’t continue, because suddenly her mouth is on his and they’re kissing, _really_ kissing, in a way he has never kissed anyone before. She puts a knee against his crotch, using the cushion of the chair to leverage herself closer, never moving away from him, tongue pushing against his lips, pressing into his mouth.

He thinks he must make some sort of noise, because she presses even closer to him, putting even more pressure between his legs.

And then, just as suddenly, it’s all over, and she’s stepping back, releasing her hold on his wrists, flushing, lips swollen. And all Harry can do is stare at her, breathing hard, more aroused than he would like to admit, though she can probably see it. He wonders if she’s looking, if she’s thinking about it. He doesn't know if he hopes she is or not.

“Well,” says Ron. When Harry looks past Hermione to him, he’s grinning. “We thought you didn’t feel like that, mate. You should’ve said something ages ago. She’s got all this pent-up sexual frustration,” he adds, almost like an aside. “This list thing has been driving her mad, really. She’s always telling me about it.” He stops, grin widening. “Saying how badly she wished they were right, how it keeps her up at night, _wanting_ you.”

“Wanting… Wait, what?”

“You’re so fucking oblivious!” Hermione suddenly bursts. “ _You’re_ the thing we were missing! And when you—when you say things like that—I just want you more!”

Dazed, Harry realizes that he has never once before heard Hermione say _fuck_. She must be _really_ upset with him, then, but all he can think is—fuck, she looks _hot_. How has he never realized how attractive she is in anger before?

And Ron, at her shoulder… His face is flushed too, his eyes glazed over with that _wanting_ , and maybe Harry didn’t like blokes two months ago, but he’s _definitely_ thinking about Ron fucking him now.

“Oh, fuck,” he groans, covering his face with his hands. “Fuck, you guys.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say!” Hermione cries. “ _God_ , if you weren’t so—so bloody thick, you’d’ve realized months ago!”

“Realized what?” he asks weakly, dropping his hands.

“That she’s constantly mentally undressing you,” Ron supplies. “That she holds you _all_ the time, that she wants to kiss your mouth as often as she kisses your cheek—”

“You’re no better!” Hermione snaps. “You’re always _staring_ , going to sleep in his bed and then waking up the next morning turned on because his _hand_ brushed against your _back_ —”

“At least I do something about it!” Ron says hotly. “You just moan and groan about it all to me and then _I_ get all hot and bothered—”

“You did it to me too!” Hermione sounds downright hysterical now.

“Um, guys?”

“No way,” Ron denies. “You were way worse, and you wouldn’t even let me fuck you again because it would ‘mess things up,’ as if they weren’t _already_ —”

“I’m still here,” Harry says loudly, and they both stop, turning to face him again.

“Sorry.” Hermione lets out a long breath. She’s standing a bit awkwardly, legs squeezed together. He thinks they’re rather quite the pair at the moment, but a quick look at Ron shows they are not the only ones. He’s pressed himself against Hermione, looks like he’s just a few short movements away from humping her leg.

“This is a lot,” Harry says, rather pointlessly.

“Yeah.” She wraps her arms around herself, shuddering. “I’m sorry, Harry, I’m not really mad at you, we just—we never even _thought_ …”

“I didn’t realize either,” he admits. “Until the list and then, er, Ginny told me—she said that me, um, wanting to see you guys shagging was _really_ not just a thing blokes think about when their mates are together and, er—”

“ _Don’t_ , Harry.” Hermione looks pained. “Oh, Merlin, how—how _long_ have you thought that?”

“At least a year,” he admits. “When we were out in the woods, I dunno, I didn’t really—I just thought—well, maybe it would be, I dunno, nice?”

Hermione whimpers. Suddenly, Ron is wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her against him. They’re both wearing rather _intense_ expressions. Harry squirms under their gazes, suddenly understanding what Ron said about Hermione _mentally undressing_ him.

“What do you want now?” Ron asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” he manages. “I want—I think we should go somewhere—”

Ron releases Hermione, who stumbles slightly, as if drunk with her arousal. Once she has regained her footing, she comes forward and helps Harry stand up, and then they’re all moving together, Ron assuring them that they’ll have complete privacy in the boys’ dorms. Harry is too dazed to ask what they’ll do if Neville comes back—Dean and Seamus both returned home for the holidays—and simply lets Ron lead the way.

Harry closes the door behind him, and then Ron approaches and pulls out his wand to ensure it’s locked. Harry finds himself leaning against the door, all sorts of feelings roiling about inside him.

Ron stands before him, so close Harry can feel his breaths against his own lips.

“Hermione got to kiss you,” he murmurs. “Can I?”

Unable to speak, Harry nods, and then Ron is kissing him, so much gentler than Hermione but certainly not any less passionate. He has the height advantage, and he uses it to push Harry flush against the door, deepening their kiss.

When he pulls away, he’s grinning again.

“You taste so good,” he says fervently. “You’re so gorgeous, mate, you’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted this—”

“Harry,” calls Hermione. She’s sitting on Harry’s bed, has removed her shoes as well her robes, exposing slender arms. “It’s your call, okay? What do you want?”

“I...I don’t know.” He looks between the two of them, feeling rather lost. “I— Oh, I don’t know, this is so much—”

“We don’t need to do anything you’re not ready for,” Ron says, pressing his lips against Harry’s neck, soft, gentle, warm. Harry’s knees wobble. Significantly.

“I—I don’t think— Could I just watch?”

Hermione laughs. It’s a beautiful sound normally, but now it’s tinged with something else, something that twists Harry’s insides all around. He wants to hear that sound _all_ the time—

“I think we could arrange that,” she says, and so it is that, finally, Harry gets to see Ron and Hermione fuck.

It is much, much better than he ever imagined it (and, he must admit, after all this time, he has imagined it quite a lot).

~

They decide that, for now, they’ll keep things quiet, at least until they’ve figured it all out for themselves. Harry quickly learns that, as bossy as Hermione is normally, she’s about ten times more so when she gets really turned on. Her gentle, calming voice is quite the contrast indeed to her dominating, aggressive manner in bed. Ron is far gentler, but he’s more than willing to challenge Hermione in a way Harry just can’t see himself doing.

They keep the sexual aspect of things slow, though, solely for Harry’s sake. He trusts them completely, of course he does, but the truth is that he’s still rather jumpy and, they’ve found, sometimes he’s more likely to react whilst in the middle of a good snog. Hermione theorizes that this is because his conscious mind is so overwhelmed that only his subconscious is there to react, without any rational thought to keep it from making him push them away and begin to panic.

Neither Ron nor Hermione appear bothered by this, though. They both seem to relish in simply being able to hold him without constraint, in being able to kiss him whenever and wherever they want. Ron likes to talk a lot, surprisingly, saying that he loves the way Harry looks when he calls him _beautiful_ or _gorgeous_ or _so fucking hot_. Hermione doesn’t react the same way to the talking, apparently. She is forceful, efficient, not one to waste time on words when there are better things to be done.

They spend the weeks of winter break entirely in the company of each other, snogging, talking, snogging, and Harry finds himself rather surprised at the level of comfort and contentment he feels in it all.

“You know,” he says on the last day while they sit cuddled by the fire, Hermione’s head in Ron’s lap as she reads a book and he absently strokes her hair, “Ginny said something to me a couple weeks ago.”

“She says lots of stupid things,” Ron points out. Hermione _tsk_ s, but doesn’t admonish him for the dig at his sister.

Harry shakes his head, though, sitting up in order to look at them both at once. “It wasn’t stupid,” he says. “She told me she doesn’t really believe in true love, but—er, what was it…’I think that’s what you three have,’ she said.” He pauses, heat rushing to his face. “Oh—never mind, I don’t know why—”

But Ron is tugging him closer again, rolling his eyes. “Don’t be stupid,” he mutters. “Obviously we love you too.”

“That’s right,” Hermione says absently, flipping to the next page of her book. “Have for a long time, really. Feels like forever.”

Harry smiles, warming from his chest all the way down to his feet.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that before the portrait is opening and admitting a chattering bunch of students, freshly returned from home for the holidays. Instinctively, Harry tries to move away, but Ron holds him close, pressing his lips to Harry’s temple briefly and then whispering, “They’ll already know, mate.”

And it’s true: together, the three of them had updated the list, so that anyone who looked at it would know who the winner of the damn thing is. Or, winners, Harry supposes. They also discovered, to Harry’s utter shock, that the pool had grown beyond a total of a thousand galleons, though most of the bets had been placed on either Ron or Hermione (and Malfoy, but that is another matter entirely, as far as Harry is concerned, and one he’d rather not ever even think about, at that).

The first person who sees it is, predictably, Parvati.

“Merlin!” she gasps. “I had almost given up hope!”

The drama quickly attracts the others, all of them peering around each other to figure out what she’s talking about. As they see, many hushed voices begin to rise about in the common room, a cacophony of excitement they had all but forgotten about _weeks_ ago.

Parvati pushes through the crowd and then leans over the back of the couch to look at Harry. She’s trying to glare at him, but it’s rather overtaken by her massive grin.

“Finally!” she cries. “I thought you’d never do it, Harry, I really did. Do you know how much money I’ve just earned? I could just kiss you right now!”

She earns glares from both Ron and Hermione for that, but all she does is laugh.

“Oh, Malfoy is going to be so pleased,” she says happily. “Between the two of us, we’ve each made a small fortune today. Thanks, Harry, _really_. And I’m happy for you, of course,” she adds. “We knew all along, obviously.”

With that, she turns and practically skips away, heading out of the common room to, presumably, begin doling out the winnings.

“Malfoy?” Harry asks after a moment.

“Oh, yes.” Hermione flips a page. “I heard he put a hundred galleons on each of us. Parvati was probably half that, but she’ll get quite a lot back as well.”

Ron grimaces. “I _should've_ bet on you, Hermione. If only I’d known then that it wasn’t a lost cause.”

“Sorry,” Harry says sheepishly, but he can’t stop smiling as he thinks about it all. Two months ago, he never would have imagined any of this, but _now_ …

Well, the list may have been more trouble than it was worth, but he wouldn’t want to change any of it. He makes a mental note to thank Parvati one of these days as he sinks back into Ron’s embrace, letting the calming sounds of his and Hermione’s breathing wash over him, drowning out the sounds of his housemates behind them.

Let them talk, he thinks. Nothing they say could ever take away this feeling he has now, with the two people he loves most right by his side.

**~fin~**

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx
> 
> (p.s. catch me on twitter [@laphicets](https://twitter.com/laphicets) or tumblr [@kohakhearts](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com) for writing updates. i also sometimes take writing requests on both!)


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